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Re: deceleration



David B. said in part

" . . .
As much as we may not
like it, the speeding up meaning of the term 'acceleration' is
already fixed in the population of English-speaking culture, and we
can't change that. In fact it's the prior ubiquity of this
'speeding up' meaning of the word (as well as its resistance to
change) that is a major cause of the problems students have
concerning the physics concept of acceleration as a vector
derivative.
. . ."


Does anyone on the list knowledgable of physics in non-English languages
know if the vocabulary situation is better in those languages and hence is
the confusion less pronounced in physics education in those languages?

Joel R.

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.